A LUNG cancer expert has warned the Government’s NHS reform plans could put patients’ lives at risk.

Dr Tim Howes, a consultant chest physician at Colchester General Hospital, says proposals for the biggest overhaul of the NHS since its inception could lead to a rise in death rates The changes will see primary care trusts abolished, with GPs taking over direct responsibility for the bulk of NHS’s £100billion budget.

More private companies are also likely to be invited to compete to provide hospital services.

In a letter to his MP, Tory Brooks Newmark, Dr Howes said: “I am anxious they (MPs) may not realise in their zeal it really is people’s lives they are dealing with.”

Dr Howes, a consultant at the hospital for 15 years, said he believed the Government had exaggerated the need for reform and added the coalition’s claims the country was lagging behind in cancer treatment were untrue.

He said: “I treat patients with lung cancer and we contribute to the national lung cancer audit database.

“If patients dying within 30 days of referral are excluded – late diagnoses because of delays in general practice – we are as good, if not better, than other First World countries.”

Heart disease cases, Dr Howes added, were in line with other European countries, while breast cancer rates had fallen by 40 per cent over the past 20 years and were now close to the French rates.

He added: “Again, if trends continue, it is likely the UK will have lower death rates in just a few years.

“To say that we are currently behind other countries is simply out-of-date information.”

Dr Howes went on to suggest it would be “highly likely” any dramatic change in the NHS, however well-intentioned, would reverse these trends.

His letter to Braintree MP Mr Newmark added: “It is your government which will shoulder the blame when death rates go up, just in time for the next election.”

However, Mr Newmark responded: “I’m afraid he and I are going to have to disagree on this one.

“I think the principle of putting decision-making in the hands of GPs who are sensitive to the individual needs of their patients is a far better way of dealing with these issues than what has happened before.

“Having a top-down approach with target-setting doesn’t put the patient first.”